Users of mobile electronic communications devices are often required to enter data, such as data representative of appointment or meeting details. The underlying data-store and its interface can be designed to make this accurate or convenient, with these two goals frequently being at odds with each other.
While accurate systems are often inconvenient to use and can even confuse users enough to cause errors or waste resources, convenient systems can also lead to errors because of, for example, data entry elements omitted or data values assumed for the sake of user convenience.
Inaccuracies resulting from poorly designed systems can lead to data records being needlessly created. This can waste memory in the device, as well as power in creating and then deleting or modifying spurious data records. Further, when the data-store is remote to the device that initiates the creation of the data record, bandwidth of the connecting network is taken up when creating or modifying data records. Waste of bandwidth results when unnecessary data records are created and then deleted or modified. Although in some cases these negative effects may be small, in a system with a large number of devices and servers, such effects can be magnified.
Improvements in usability and convenience of these devices often demand a minimal amount of data input from the user, as opposed to requiring a large amount of data to be entered. When relatively little data is to be entered, the chance of an unnecessary data record being created can increase, which compounds the waste of power and other resources.
It is desirable to have convenient or “smart” communications devices, but there is tension between usability/convenience and the efficient use of resources.